Page 47 of Something to Someone

Eventually, Ryder pulled out of me and took his body heat with him.

I turned into the blankets beneath me, and he chuckled at my muffled groan. I knew I should get up to pee, but moving from the bed sounded like the worst decision I could make. A few minutes wouldn’t kill me or result in a UTI. I hoped.

I heard his quiet footsteps as he padded into his bathroom and the soft click of the door opening. The toilet flushed, and the water turned on, but it sounded far away. I was still happily floating.

The bed dipped, and Ryder’s arm appeared around my torso. I didn’t open my eyes as he tugged me higher onto the bed and positioned me against his pillows. I did, however, roll over and rest my head on his chest. He covered us both with the blanket draped at the bottom of the bed, and I was wrapped in warmth.

When he kissed my forehead and tightened his hold around me, I suppressed a sigh.

“I’ve never met this Caroline before,” he said. “Orgasm drunk, sated, and cuddly. I like her.”

My eyes popped open, and I peered up at him. Licking my lips, I refrained from voicing my first thought.Most people haven’t met her.And by most, I meant almost no one. In my almost thirty-four years, there had only been two. Well, now three.

“By the pool you ran off, and you did the same thing in your bed last time. This is…nice.”

Blue eyes bounced between mine, and he intertwined our fingers that lay on his stomach. Fighting that unparalleled desire to flee, I swallowed around the lump in my throat and ignored the pang in my chest as well as the memories of the last two men I’d laid like this with. Instead, I hummed and did the next best thing, deflected with words.

“It is,” I said, looking down at our joined hands. “You shouldn’t ruin it with your commentary.”

He laughed and brushed his lips against the top of my head. When he took a deep breath, I realized he was smelling me, which was slightly odd until it was followed by a rumble in his chest. Nothing that would have been noticeable if I weren’t laying directly on him, but since I was, I could hear and feel it.

Whatever he smelled, likely my dry shampoo and hair oil, he liked.

We laid there quietly, listening to the faint sounds from outside his apartment. A car door slammed, and the people above us sounded like they were playingDance Dance Revolutionor rearranging all the furniture in their living room.

I was trying to decipher the noise when Ryder’s phone buzzed on the nightstand. He didn’t reach for it, instead he continued rubbing his thumb over the nail polish on mine. When it happened again but for longer, like someone was calling him, I lifted my head.

“You can get that,” I said.

He shook his head and stared at our hands. “It’s my dad.”

“You know that without looking at it?”

He nodded and sighed. “He’s calling because he wants to know which job I took.”

Once again, I struggled not to move or react because that question had also been heavy on my mind since he’d told me about the possibility. I wanted him to do what was best for him, but shockingly, I didn’t want him to leave. A feeling I was still struggling with.

I’d tried not to think about it, but the more I tried to ignore it, the more it made itself known. It had been a long time since I struggled with controlling my thoughts like I did around Ryder.

“Today was the deadline,” I stated.

“It was,” Ryder said plainly, and I waited with bated breath for his answer. If he’d taken that job, he’d probably have to leave sooner rather than later. They weren’t likely to let him wait much longer.

Then came the realization that what we’d just done—the mind-blowing sex we’d just had—could have been a goodbye. The first and the last time all at once.

Seconds ticked by, and I’d finally had enough. “And?”

He laughed, and I tried to take my hand back, but his grip was too tight for me to shake. “Is the anticipation killing you?”

“If you don’t want to tell me, then you don’t have?—”

“I’m not going anywhere, Caroline.”

I stopped and made the stupid decision to look up at him. Tender blue eyes found mine, and Ryder’s customary lopsided smile tilted his lips. There was a flash of his shallow dimple before his smile was too wide to see it.

“I took the job here, so I won’t be moving. Well, I will be moving, but just across town instead of states away.”

“Why? The other one was more money, right? And more potential for growth?”

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